View full sizeMembers of the borough's City Council delegation are calling for service every half-hour on the Staten Island Ferry, at all times.Staten Island Advance File Photo

An hour-long wait for the Staten Island Ferry could
become a thing of the past, as Staten Island's City Council delegation plans to
introduce legislation to mandate that nobody waits more than a half an hour for
a ferryboat, the Advance has learned.

The proposal comes a week after the Independent Budget
Office raised the idea of scrapping late-night Staten Island Ferry service on
weekdays and weekends altogether, in favor of a bus between the terminals.

The move also comes about eight years after a similar
bill passed the Council unanimously, overrode a veto from Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, but ultimately wound up being scrapped for a compromise that added
extra weekday morning service, extra weekend morning service, and one 1 a.m. weekday
departure from Whitehall Terminal in Manhattan.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/7102967/"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;If it saved the city money, would you be willing take a free bus nonstop from Whitehall to the St. George Ferry Terminal during overnight hours?&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

The compromise meant avoiding a potential lawsuit over
whether the Council has the authority to legislate action from an agency - the city
Department of Transportation - that the mayor has control over.

But
for those Staten Islanders who work overnight or weekend hours or who would
like to take in a Broadway play or other Manhattan nightlife, missing a
late-night ferry by minutes still means an lengthy hour-long wait in the
Whitehall Terminal.

Likewise,
anybody from Manhattan visiting Staten Island has to deal with long waits -
catching a Staten Island Yankees game or a show at the St. George Theatre can
seem less appealing when service runs only once an hour, in either direction, after
7 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

The
new proposed legislation, which has not yet been introduced to the full City Council, mirrors the original 2004 bill authored by former Councilman Michael McMahon (D-North Shore), also
sponsored by Councilman James Oddo (R-Mid-Island) and then-Councilman, now
state Sen. Andrew Lanza. It was passed and vetoed in 2004, then passed over the
veto in 2005 before the compromise was reached.

The
new bill would also be a bipartisan affair, to be introduced by Oddo,
Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore) and Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North
Shore). It would require that "ferries never depart more than thirty minutes
after the departure of a previous ferry," a standard that would exist every day
of the year - weekdays, weekends, at night and on legal holidays.

Currently,
on weekdays the ferry runs once an hour from Whitehall to St. George between 2
a.m. and 6 a.m., and once an hour from St. George to Whitehall between 1 a.m.
and 5 a.m.

On
Saturdays, the ferry currently runs just once hour from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., and
on Sundays, just once an hour between 7 p.m. and 9 a.m.

Issues
that stymied lawmakers last time are sure to come up again - coordinating Staten
Island Railway and MTA bus service from the St. George Terminal, so riders aren't
just waiting again on the other side of the harbor, and the Council's legal
authority to make the change.

As for the IBO's suggestion - which the office said was
just an idea, not something they advocated - the bus service would run from
midnight to 5 a.m. on weekdays, and from 1 to 5 a.m. on weekends, saving
$4.3 million a year. The bus would run between the terminals with no stops. But
commuters would have to deal with potential traffic - much more a hazard on the
Gowanus than on the Hudson River.

In the past, the IBO has suggested that a fare be reinstated
on the ferry - an idea that went nowhere. Along with the overnight buses, the IBO
suggested several other likely political nonstarters - including tolling the
East River and Harlem River bridges, which could raise more than $1 billion.

Check SILive.com later today and tomorrow's Advance for more information about the proposal.